“And the grave?” This question came eagerly from at least three of the company.
“In front of the fireplace there was a big oblong hole—six feet by three, by four—planks at the bottom, the sides roughly lined with brick. Captain Duggle’s grave; but he wasn’t in it!”
“But what really became of him, Mr. Penrose?” cried Cynthia.
“The Rising Generation is very skeptical,” said old Naylor. “You, of course, Penrose, believe the story?”
“I do,” said Mr. Penrose composedly. “I believe that a devil carried him off, and that its name was delirium tremens. We can guess, can’t we, Irechester, why he smashed or burnt everything, and fled in mad terror into the darkness? Where to? Was he drowned at sea, or did he take his life, or did he rot to death in some filthy hole? Nobody knows. But the grave he dug is there in the Tower, unless it’s been filled up since old Saffron has lived there.”
“Why in the world wasn’t it filled up before?” asked Alec Naylor with a laugh. “People lived in the cottage, didn’t they?”
“I’ve visited the cottage often,” Irechester interposed, “when various people had it, but I never saw any signs of the Tower being used.”
“It never was, I’m sure; and as for the grave, well, Alec, in country parts, to this day, you’d be thought a bold man if you filled up a grave that your neighbor had dug for himself, and such a neighbor as Captain Duggle! He might take it into his head some night to visit it, and if he found it filled up there’d be trouble, nasty trouble!” His laugh cackled out rather uncomfortably. Gertie shivered, and one of the subalterns gulped down his port.
“Old Saffron’s a man of education, I believe. No doubt he pays no heed to such nonsense, and has had the thing covered up,” said Naylor.
“As to that I don’t know. Perhaps you do, Irechester? He’s your patient, isn’t he?”